


Vita Perpetuum: Second-Time Around

by beetle



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Police, Anal Sex, And that's all just the main relationship, Atonement - Freeform, Cops, Crooked Cops, Cryogenics, Culture Shock, Cyborgs, Designer Genes, Dysfunctional Relationships, Dystopian Future, Earth, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Lovers, Eugenics, Evolution, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Heavy Angst, Immortality, Immortals vs. Cops, Insanity, LGBTQ Character, Loneliness, Loss of Virginity, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Mars, Redemption, Space Opera, Suspended Animation, Wealth, forced evolution, sort of, though not really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 05:49:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3517745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 4875.</p><p>The future is shit . . . absolute <i>shit</i>, and Detective Declan Buchanan, a Second-Timer, knows this first-hand. Enter a one night-stand with ties to him that Buchanan can't ignore or ever, ever forget, plus a partnership he'd never have asked for, leading from the polluted, over-crowded cities of Earth-that-is, to the red plains of Mars, and finally to a place which shouldn't even exist. And all along the way are confrontations and revelations that will not only change the lonely existences of one hard-bitten cop and his loony nemesis/not-quite-boyfriend, but the shape of humanity's future. Their <i>vitas</i> may be <i>perpetuum</i>, but time is nonetheless running out.</p><p>Written for the prompt: Imagine yourself in a different century and describe an average day in your life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vita Perpetuum: Second-Time Around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badskippy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskippy/gifts), [vinniebatman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinniebatman/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: None.
> 
> Also note that BadSkippy is now coauthor, thanks to a COMPENDIOUS knowledge of science-y stuff that makes my brain hurt, but is essential for the story. Thank you, BadSkippy.

* * *

 

I opened my gritty eyes and stared up at the ThreeDee, which was still playing on mute, projected onto my ceiling. As usual, it took me about five seconds to process who I was, where I was, and  _when_  I was.

Detective Declan Buchanan, _New_ New York City . . . 4875. . . .

Blinking, I tried to recall any nightmares I may have had, and couldn’t. I was merely left with the strong suspicion that I hadn’t slept well. Par for the course. The doctors at Vita Perpetuum had claimed that Second-Timers didn’t dream during their REM cycles . . . that we simply floated around in a formless void until it was time to go wakey-bye.

Horseshit. Just because Second-Timers don’t remember their dreams and nightmares doesn’t mean we don’t  _have_  them.

I’ll tell you what  _isn’t_  horseshit, though. Third-Timers? Don’t even  _need_  REM sleep, anymore. And Fourth-Timers don’t need sleep  _period_ , or so it’s been rumored. As for Fifth- and higher, that info’s classified like nobody’s business. Nobody’s, except of course, the premiere families of Earth-That-Is, who have the money and pull to keep getting ReGen without committing multiple felonies. The rest of us plebes live our banal single lives—or a Hellish two or three lives—then stay dead.

Rubbing my sore eyes, I rolled over and encountered another body in my bed. Some blond who’d followed me home from the bar last night. He’d been seemingly fascinated with my maudlin, boring-ass stories of Earth-That-Was and I’d been fascinated by his whirling, rainbow eyes and tight ass. But even I’ll admit it was mostly the eyes, for me. (You could tell I was still largely what the kids these days call a  _turista_  in this time. Still wide-eyed like I was fresh out of stasis. Shit like genetic modified irises still enthralled me.)

Not that the rest of the blond’s package hadn’t been as nice. He had the kind of perfectly-tanned, perfectly-toned body that hinted at more gen-mods or at least expensive elective surgeries. And who, on the trash heap that was Earth-That- _Is_ , had that kind of scratch?

No, even in my fog of inebriation, I’d recognized that the blond had belonged at a cop dive like  _Maloney’s_  like I belonged at a Martian-themed rave. But who was I to turn away someone— _anyone_ —who could stave off the loneliness? Especially when he was _so_ , as the kids these days say,  _epically groinable_?

I’d been sipping whiskey sours alone and doing nothing more scintillating than mentally tabulating how (for the millionth time) many probable decades I was looking at for the rest of my, ahem, service, to the government of Earth. I knew that for what I owed, I was looking at . . . at least three quarters of a Third-Time, assuming I didn’t slab-out early in my Second-Time.  
  
Which, considering that I was a vice detective in  _New_  New York City, was a lot to assume.

At any rate, I was staring into my future, and getting more and more drunk, and more and more depressed, when the platinum blond sidled up to me out of nowhere in his suicidally-tight jeans and shifting, rainbow shirt, and initiated small talk. One thing had led to another and before I could blink, it seemed, we were back at my shitty flat, doing damage to my shitty Murphy bed.  
  
It’d been . . . _memorable_. Energetic, freaky, and memorable. The best I’ve had since waking up in my Second-Time. Maybe even the best  _ever_.

Not that I was thinking of it in those terms, then. In fact, I was doing my best not to think of it at all. One night was one night. That was that. Never mind that he’d curled up in my arms around what passed for dawn in these latter, murky, polluted days. Never mind that he’d fallen asleep that way, the finger stroking my bicep slowly drifting to a gentle stop.

Never mind that I’d fallen asleep soon after, holding him as if he was a fragile piece of crystal—he definitely was  _not_  fragile . . . unlike my poor Murphy bed—just never mind  _that_ , please and thank you.

 _Well,_  I thought grimly, with the faint beginnings of a headache.  _At least whatever nightmares I had weren’t as bad as they_ have been _, lately. Must not’ve been too harum-scarum if the blond is still here. Usually, the flailing and yelling scares ‘em spang outta bed. Either I’m finally evening out or this kid’s got ice-water in his veins._

And as if my thoughts about him woke him, the blond suddenly yawned and stretched, rolling over so he was facing me. His rainbow eyes were squinting at me and he was smiling like he hadn’t seen a rainy day in his life. He probably hadn’t.

But it was the kind of smile I hadn’t seen since . . . since First-Time around, and it did funny things to the lump of flesh, blood, wires, and alloy that was ticking in my chest and passed for a heart.

“Mm . . . g’morning,” he murmured in a sleepy English accent, leaning over to kiss me. Unlike mine,  _his_  morning breath tasted like citrus and mint. Genetic modifications, indeed.  
  
After allowing the kiss for a few seconds, I rolled away from him, sitting up and swinging my feet to the floor. The ThreeDee followed my position to center on the wall in front of me. It was barely past eight, according to the ThreeDee’s digital clock.

“I have to get ready for work,” I lied gruffly as the blond’s warm, gentle hands settled on my back sliding up and down, down and up.

“Not just yet,” he insisted, kissing the center of my back. I shivered.

“Sorry, kiddo, but this ride’s closed for the day.”

One deceptively fine, but strong hand snaked around my waist, to my groin. “ _This_  says otherwise,” the blond noted, stroking and stroking, lazy and sure. His hand felt so soft, but his grip was almost punishing. “ _This_  says you’re ready to turn this little tryst into a four-peat.”

“Listen, kid—”

“The name’s Irving,” he breathed in my ear, like a tropical breeze. “And I’ll wager all the cred in my bank accounts that I’m older than you by a bloody long shot, butch.”

I snorted, then groaned, bucking helplessly up into his grip. “Gen-mods and surgery can do a lot, kid, but no one older than me would’ve sat through my Earth-That-Was bullshit, let alone come home with me.” It was hard to admit, but then I’ve never been able to lie to myself. And it was almost as tough to lie to someone who was kind enough to stroke me off even as I was being a prick. “Only a Firstie would be charmed enough by tales of the distant past to follow me home based on the strength of that.”

A breathy,  _sexy_  laugh, and so help me, but Englishmen have always turned my crank. “Call it nostalgia? Meeting you was like old home week. Getting fucked by you was the icing on the cake.”

“Is that what last night was?” I grunted, my eyes fluttering shut as I gritted my teeth. “Icing?”

The blond—Irving—kissed his way up my neck. “Last night was the best night anyone’s given me in a  _very_  long time. Since my First-Time, actually.” Irving sighed and stopped stroking and kissing to wrap his arms around my neck. “Don’t let’s end it until we absolutely have to, butch, eh?”

I closed my eyes again on the garish display of the ThreeDee and tried to think. I really  _didn’t_  have to be to the station till ten. . . .

And what harm could extending last night by one more, quick, dirty screw, possibly do? When was I ever likely to get it this good again?

 _Never . . . that’s when,_  a plain, implacable voice said from the back of my brain. And it was louder and more convincing than I was comfortable with admitting. But I figured it was right:  _What was the harm in indulging just this once?_

“Fuck it,” I muttered, turning to catch Irving in my arms, kissing him hard as I bore him back down to my bed. He gave that throaty chuckle again, which turned into a purr as he wrapped his arms tight around my neck and his legs tight around my hips. He ground up against me, as hard as I was, and for a while, that was enough, just that, while looking into his changeable eyes.

Finally he laughed and kissed me, slick and obscene and just the way I liked. I palmed the cheeks of his ass hard enough to bruise and when he moaned, I let the moan break the kiss.  
  
“How old are you?” I demanded, looking down into his whirling, multicolored eyes again. They were—and I’d noticed this last night, despite being three sheets to the wind—far too  _old_  for his barely-legal face. “And what Time are you on?”

Irving grinned, slow and sly. “Guess, Detective.”

Frowning, I pushed his legs up and out, high and wide, and made myself at home between his thighs. Irving’s breathing was light and fast with anticipation, his whirling eyes dilated and wide. “Second-Time?” I guessed uncertainly as I licked two of my fingers and pushed them into him. He was still pretty slick from last night, still breathtakingly tight and  _hot_. I scissored my fingers carefully, till he was moaning and humping air. “You can’t be more than Second-Time.”

Irving giggled at that, his slick muscles clenching around and clutching at me. I swore and removed them as gingerly as I could, not wanting to hurt him. Or at least I’d _thought_  I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, because as soon as my fingers were free, I was replacing them with something considerably larger. I took his virgin-tight ass in one hard thrust that made him hiss in a pained gasp, and groan long and loud. I did some hissing of my own at the flutter of his muscles around me and the bright, hot flash of pain as his nails dug into my nape and neck.

“Oh,  _Detective_ ,” he sighed happily, arching up to meet me. “While I’m flattered that . . . you think I possess the . . .  _joie de vivre_  . . . of a man in his second lifetime . . . I must demur. Guess again.”

I opened eyes I hadn’t been aware of closing and found myself staring at the recessed wall behind the Murphy bed. Then I looked down at Irving, who’d closed his eyes and was biting his lip as I put my back into fucking him.

“ _Third_?!” I asked incredulously, in a voice as small as my thrusts were hard. I’d only ever even met a couple of Third-Timers, that I  _knew_  of. “I mean, you obviously still need to sleep, or you wouldn’t have—”

“ _Like_  to sleep,” Irving corrected, panting. He licked his bitten bottom lip. It seemed like such a good idea, I copied him. It quickly turned into something lewd and intense, even as it tasted innocently of citrus and mint. When it ended, Irving moaned again. “Like to sleep, Detective. Don’t  _need_  to. My  _God_ , I haven’t been fucked like this since the third millennium!”  
  
_The third—holy_ shit, _how the Hell old_ is _he?_

“You’re, uh . . . you’re really freaking me out, right now, Irving,” I breathed shakily, but didn’t stop fucking him. If anything, I fucked him harder. It was that good. Too damn good to  _stop_. “Let’s save the pillow-talk for afterwards, huh?”

“Oh, don’t stop guessing now, Detective,” Irving whispered, beaming up at me hungrily and clenching his muscles tight-tight- _tight_  around me. “I’m past my Third-Time.”  
  
I searched his eyes steadily, a cold shiver working its way down my spine. “Fourth.” It wasn’t a question. And I was wrong, it turns out, for Irving shook his head before throwing it back into my flat, flimsy pillow and crying out jaggedly. “But—you  _have_  to be a Fourth-Timer, if you’re not a Second or Third.”

“I . . .  _was_  a Fourth-Timer . . . once upon a millennium— _yes_ , Detective,  _right there_ —but those halcyon days . . . are long behind me.”

My orgasm was, despite my mental state of being extremely confused and more than slightly scared—and despite the tenor of our pillow-talk—coming on _fast_. Faster than it had the previous times earlier in the evening. Like I was a teenager, all of a sudden. Though, technically, parts of this body were, in fact, only seven years old.

I pinned Irving’s wrists to the bed, to either side of his head, and pushed down on him with my weight as I drove myself in and out of his willing body. I kept fucking him harder and harder, as if that would get answers out of him. “Who _are_  you?  _What_  are you?”  
  
“ _Unh_. Irving . . . Irving Gosse.” He moaned, eyes squinching shut as his pelvis lifted off the bed to crash against mine, meeting my thrusts with the timing of the gods. Then, when I faltered, his eyes flew open, seeking mine out. ”Don’t you  _dare_  stop now, Detective! I need—need—”

And in spite of the shock of what he’d told me—the Gosses were almost all Fifth-Timers or higher. He couldn’t  _possibly_  be a scion of the premiere of Earth’s premiere families, could he? Couldn’t  _possibly_  be a  _Gosse-_ Gosse, let alone _that_ Gosse—my body picked its rhythm back up, driving into  _his_  body harder and harder, till sweat dripped off my face and rolled down my back and Irving was beyond telling me what he needed, and just clutching at me and moaning.  
  
For long moments, all I could do was stare at his perfectly lovely angel’s face and wonder if it belonged to the nephew or grandson—or even _son_ —of the man responsible for my sentence of life plus two. Judge Irving Gosse was surely long since dead, and surrounded in Hell by all the other ‘Timers he’d created. But this kid . . . this _person_ —thing?—was alive and well and in my bed. Whatever else he was, he was a damned good lover. So, what, he was a Gosse? We all have our crosses to bear. And at least he wasn’t _that_ Gosse.

 _That Gosse aside_ , I had nothing against Earth’s first family. And if one of them wanted to slum it for a night—and part of a morning—with li’l ol’ me, destroying my poor Murphy bed in the process, so be it. I wasn’t going to complain.

So I closed my eyes and focused on staving off my orgasm for as long as possible, but I could no more control it than I could control a typhoon. It was coming. Coming.  _Here_. I quickly let go of one of Irving’s wrists and slipped a hand between our bodies. A moment later, he was hard and heavy in my hand. A few rough strokes and he was letting out another ragged, jagged cry that sounded almost pained. I could feel his release, hot and a lot, on my stomach, and the thought of him coming on me was enough to tip me over the edge—that and Irving’s muscle spasms around me, I should say.

I came with a grunt and a yell, still pumping my body back and forth, drawing out the climax as long as I could, till at last, utterly drained, I collapsed on top of Irving . . . the who, where, and when of my life briefly and thankfully forgotten all over again.

I lay there, stunned—too stunned to do more than try and remember how to breathe. I’d progressed to trying to remember my name— _I’m Dec . . . Detective Declan Buchanan_ —when Irving began to squirm around beneath me. After a minute of that, I also remembered that I was  _not_  made of fairy-dust. Most of my body was genetically modified muscle and the rest of it was alloy. With all my mods and muscle, I weighed close to three hundred, soaking wet. Which I was.

So I levered myself carefully off of Irving and rolled onto my back. Irving laughed breathlessly and followed me, cuddling up against me and pulling my still-shaking arm around his shoulders.

“I’m in my Seventh,” he whispered on my left peck, kissing my nipple and flicking his tongue out to tease it to hardness. I groaned, my spent, oversensitive body too limp to do more than note the sensation as pleasurable. Then I was harkening back to the little conversation we’d been having before the best orgasm of my entire existence got in the way.

“Seventh?” I asked, looking down at him. He was staring up at me, wide-eyed and alert. After a few moments he nodded.

“I’m  _just starting_  my Seventh life, actually.” He nuzzled my nipple before kissing it. “In fact, you’re my Reconstitution Day gift to myself. You and this body, that is—the family was bloody scandalized, by the way.” Irving gestured down at his slim, gracefully muscled body. Then he winced. “Unh. Fuck my _arse_ , but you pack a wallop, Detective!”

“It’s Dec. Declan Buchanan,” I said warily, my mind still buzzing and inconveniently blank. Irving glanced up at me from under his mop of fashionably shaggy hair.

“Pleased to meet you, Detective Dec.”

I sighed, looking away. “God, don’t call me that. It reminds me of  _Lieutenant Dan_.”  
  
Irving laughed, delighted, leaning up to kiss me on the mouth. And kiss me. And kiss me.

“You’re the first person I’ve met in centuries who remembers what an old-fashioned movie is, let alone that _particular_ one. You  _are_  a lovely surprise, Detective Buchanan.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing I should be hustling this ancient annoyance out of my apartment post-haste. The last thing I needed in my life was to get tangled up in  _any_  way with one of Earth’s few remaining elites. Hell, there’s even a saying about getting involved with any of the Five Families, and it goes like this:  _Don’t_.

And I knew from personal experience what happens when one got in a Gosse’s purview. It never ended well. Sometimes, it ended up with an extra Time tacked onto two life sentences. . . .

But even as I was thinking that, I was staring at Irving’s ancient, amused, whirling eyes, brushing his hair out of his face so as to have an unobstructed view of them. I searched them, looking for hints of icy, Atlantic-blue, and found none. But still . . . it couldn’t hurt to be sure, could it?

But really, what were the chances I’d run into  _that Gosse_  after all these centuries? Even if he was still  _alive_?

“So,” I said, when suspicion finally got the better of me. Irving smiled and leaned into my touch happily.

“So.”

“You’re a Seventh-Timer?”

“Yes.”

“And a Gosse?”

“That, too.” A winning smile. “But don’t hold it against me.”

I didn’t. Yet. Instead, I held my breath. “What year were you born?”

“2027.”

Letting out that held breath and snorting, I stopped playing with his hair and glanced over at the ThreeDee, relieved.  _That Gosse_  would’ve been older than me, right? At least by a couple years. “I’ve got you beat, after all. I was born in ‘25.” Which not only made Irving younger than me, but it also made him unlikely to be  _the_  Irv Gosse I’d run up against all those centuries ago. This was probably just a namesake. Maybe a nephew or grandson.

“Mm. But it’s not the year of birth that counts, but how many years one has spent walking around in these delightful meat-suits.” Irving snorted, too. “After my late brother, George—who was older by five years—I’m the oldest living man in recorded history.”  
  
I whistled quietly, impressed in spite of myself . . . then the import of what he said hit me. Never mind my massive denial of the past few minutes, it was being driven home to me quite suddenly that this wasn’t just some _namesake_ of Irv Gosse, but  _the man, himself._ Irving Gosse, younger brother of George Alban Gosse, 56 th president of what was once the United States of America.  
  
Still staring at the ThreeDee with eyes that stung, I let it hit me. And hit me. And hit me.  
Irving  _was that Gosse_. The man responsible for the Hell I’ll be living for at least the next six hundred years.

And I’d . . . _fucked_  him. Not once . . . but four times.

I bolted up and out of bed so fast, Irving squawked in indignation and gazed at me as if I’d gone mad.

“Detec— _Dec_? Whatever’s the matter?”

Scrubbing my face with both my hands, I shook my head. “You should go.”

Irving— _Gosse_ —snorted again, and it somehow sounded sexy on him, despite . . . everything. “Is this about getting to work on time? Believe me, darling, when I say, I can have your Sergeant kissing your divine arse if you waltz in at midnight. I’ve got a lot of pull with law enforcement.”

“Yeah,” I agreed bitterly. “I know.”

A rustle of sheets and the soft pad of fully—or not—human feet, making no attempt at stealth. Then Gosse was wrapping his arms around me, making a put-out sound when I shoved him away, hard. I would’ve thought, knowing what I know, that his touch would’ve disgusted me, but . . . it didn’t. That _he_ would’ve disgusted me . . . but he didn’t.

And that was what bothered me more than anything: the lack of disgust and hatred I felt for him. No, instead _that_ was all reserved for myself.

I turned to look at him, half-scared at what my reaction would be to him. And I was right to be scared. Aside from the churning in my gut that was getting worse as the seconds passed, I was immediately affected by his nudity. I started to raise wood slowly, but surely as I stared at him and he stared at me. I was having the same effect on him and he clearly wasn’t ashamed of that.

He stood there, getting hard, without guilt or subterfuge, while I covered myself like a blushing virgin.

“Declan, what’s—” he began, taking a step toward me, but I held out a hand, halting him. “Is something the matter? Why’re you being so coy,  _now_?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?” It slipped out without me meaning to say anything other than another request for him to leave. “I guess you wouldn’t, since I don’t look much like I did when I was a Firstie. But my _name_ doesn’t ring a bell, either, does it?”

Gosse frowned, his lovely face taking on a thoughtful look as he tried, obviously, to place  _my_  face—which he never would—and my name. Finally, he sighed and looked away. “It doesn’t,” he said softly. “But let me guess . . . my family has, in some way, negatively affected your life?”

I shook my head and Gosse looked up at me, with hope in his varicolored eyes. Till I spoke. “Not your family, _you_ son of a bitch.  _You_.”

Those rainbow eyes widened and Gosse didn’t look especially surprised, but he _did_  look even more unhappy. “I see,” he said. Then, wearily, softly: “I see. And what did I do to you to put that hatred in your eyes, Detective Buchanan? And when did I do it?”

I wiped my cheeks as the stinging overflowed from my eyes, relieving them momentarily before they were stinging again. “Federal Prosecutor Irving James Gosse . . . ‘all-duty, no mercy.’ That’s what they used to say about you when I was a rookie. And even after I made detective, that rep of yours only grew. Till you were _Federal_ _Judge_ No-Mercy, and I . . . was your latest case.” I barked a rueful laugh and looked away from Gosse, who seemed to be shrinking in on himself. “I suppose you were making an example of me. Rooting out systemic corruption and giving it what-for!”

“Detective—”

“And I guess you really  _wouldn’t_  remember me, after nearly three millennia and no doubt countless cases between then and now. Why remember one dirty cop when you had a whole bunch you threw to the wolves?” I felt tears run down my nose and drip on my bare feet. “Of course, it didn’t matter that we all had our reasons for going dirty. We had families, and problems that only money could solve. And our paychecks didn’t even remotely fit the bill.” I shook my head, fighting off the headache that’d threatened half an hour ago.

“And what . . . what was  _your_  reason, Detective?” Gosse’s voice was small and strange.  
I barked that awful laugh again. “Does it matter? Wrong is wrong, and reasons don’t change that. Believe me, I learned that lesson a long time ago. And you taught it to me.” I looked up after wiping my face dry and steeled myself against the physical draw I knew I’d feel when I looked at Gosse.

Under his tan, he was pale and his rainbow eyes looked utterly miserable. He didn’t look anything like the Judge Gosse who’d put me in the clink for life with no possibility of parole. He looked like a sad, dumb party-kid. Lost and lonely and uncertain of himself.

Inexplicably, I wanted—

Never mind what I wanted.  _Fuck_  what I wanted.

“You should go.” I said it evenly, without a hint of the scream I could feel building from the tips of my toes and fingers, and moving ever inward.

Gosse opened his mouth as if he would say something . . . then closed it, and nodded, turning away from me to search for his clothes.

I went to my closet and pulled on a pair of sweatpants, then waited for him to finish dressing.

When he was poured back into those tight jeans and that shimmering shirt, he turned to face me, running a hand through his hair. His eyes were narrowed as if he was trying to remember something.

“A daughter,” he said finally, and I froze. “ _Your_   _daughter_. She was your reason, was she not?”

Shocked into answering, I nodded. “She had Singleton-Engels Syndrome. A pretty aggressive form of it. I couldn’t keep up with her medical bills and neither could my insurance.” I shrugged and turned toward the door to my flat. I meant to open it and give him the heave-ho, but I found myself fighting tears again.

I told myself all the time that I didn’t think of my Laura every minute of every day, but like I said, I’m a shit liar.

“They . . . they found a way to treat it not too long after you were incarcerated . . . the treatment was expensive, but it worked in the vast majority of patients. Did she—”

“I don’t know.” I said flatly. “I was shanked in the prison shower three months after I was sentenced. I died. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the fucking _future_ , and it’s shit, the future is absolute  _shit_. And because of the circumstances surrounding my First-Time, I can’t legally go digging into my descendants’ records. Assuming any exist, since Laura was my only blood relation when I died and she surely wasn’t too far behind me.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” I looked back at Gosse to see he was closer than I expected, and I stumbled backward as if he had the plague. His face was grim and unreadable, but for those eyes . . . there was such . . . compassion in them, that it left me breathless and near tears again. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

“No . . . I don’t suppose it does,” Gosse said softly, then sighed, his shoulders slumping. But before another moment could pass, he’d straightened like a ramrod, and his manner became business-like and terse. So much so that I could see unmistakable hints of Judge Irv Gosse in him where before there’d been none. “Well, I . . . shan’t trouble you further, Detective Buchanan. I apologize for . . . overstaying my dubious welcome. Good day.”

And with that, he was striding to the door and letting himself out. The door clicked discreetly shut behind him, and as soon as it did, I leaned against it and slid down to the floor, the room and the ThreeDee gone blurry for tears that just would not, after seven years—after  _three millennia_ —be held back anymore.

END


End file.
